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Trib poll: 40 percent of Illinois Republicans appear to have pro-choice views

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* The Chicago Tribune divulges - in the middle of a story - some more info about its latest poll…

A Tribune poll last month of likely Republican primary voters found half believe more restrictions should be placed on abortion, 32 percent said current regulations should remain in place and only 8 percent said fewer restrictions should be imposed.

That split is definitely not as clear-cut as some on the Right might have you think. Only half of all Republicans want more restrictions, while 40 percent said do nothing or loosen restrictions? This is just another reason why running too far to the right in this state can be a liability. Occasionally, some will get through, but the trend is obviously not their friend here.

Meanwhile…

The number of abortions performed in Illinois reached a 10-year high in 2008, newly compiled state records show. […]

In 2008, the most recent year for which data are available, figures from the Illinois Public Health Department show that 47,717 abortions were performed statewide.

That represents a 5 percent increase from 2007. And it’s the most abortions in Illinois in a year since 1998, when 49,403 women were reported to have had abortions.

The state’s main provider of abortion services has heard from its clients that the economy is a factor in their decisions, said Steve Trombley, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Council’s Chicago area chapter. […]

Robert Gilligan, executive director of the anti-abortion Catholic Conference of Illinois, attributed the 2008 increases, in part, to the opening of Planned Parenthood’s Aurora clinic in November 2007.

And James Warren does his best to try and connect the dots between the rumor-mongering about Mark Kirk and the abortion issue..

The same unconfirmed rumors about Mr. Kirk’s sexual orientation have been regurgitated quite a bit by the ideological swamp that is the blogosphere. Then there is the right wing’s overriding rage that Mr. Kirk, who represents a moderate north suburban district, supports abortion rights.

The diehards appear to believe that anything is fair game when it comes to preventing what they deem murder.

I’m not sure that’s an effective segue. I’m not sure it’s even comprehensible.

* Speaking of polls, my weekly syndicated newspaper column was linked here last week, but not posted. Here it is…

According to two recent polls taken by Rasmussen Reports and one by the Chicago Tribune, Gov. Pat Quinn has a detectable and significant problem with women voters, but a new development in the campaign might help the governor overcome this gender gap.

Rasmussen recently matched Republican gubernatorial frontrunner Jim Ryan against Democrats Gov. Pat Quinn and Comptroller Dan Hynes. Ryan outpolled Gov. Quinn by seven points, 46 to 39, but the former Republican attorney general trailed Hynes by two points, 40 to 42.

What’s going on? Well, the poll’s internals show a stark difference among women voters. Ryan leads Quinn 45 to 36 among women, but Hynes reverses the result and leads Ryan 42 to 32 with women. That’s a huge difference, but it seems to hold up when compared with other recent polling.

An earlier Rasmussen poll pitting Hynes and Quinn against the other Republican gubernatorial candidates showed Hynes doing far better with women than Quinn in every race.

The Chicago Tribune’s recent poll showed Quinn doing much worse with Democratic women than men on several issues. While 56 percent of Democratic men approved of Quinn’s handling of the state budget, just 38 percent of Democratic women did so. And while 45 percent of Democratic men approved of Quinn’s handling of ethics reforms, just 39 percent of women approved. Far more men, 40 percent, said Quinn was the better candidate to “eliminate” corruption in state government than women, 29 percent.

What appears to be happening is that many of Hynes’ supporters, particularly females, are so turned off by Quinn that they’re willing to at least say they’ll vote for the Republican Ryan rather than support the incumbent governor. Many of those voters, particularly harder-core Democrats, will eventually come “home.” For instance, Rasmussen’s poll has Quinn leading Jim Ryan 55 to 26 among black voters, while Hynes leads Ryan 81 to 9 among African-Americans. Some voters, however, may never come back. Rasmussen has Quinn virtually tied with Ryan (41 to 39) among moderate voters, while Hynes holds a strong 58 to 29 lead over Ryan among moderates.

Even so, Hynes hasn’t managed to translate this gender gap into a real electoral advantage. Quinn is leading Hynes 43 to 25 among Democratic women in the Tribune poll. That lead among women is a far smaller margin than the 57 to 19 advantage Quinn holds over Hynes with men, but it’s still a big lead.

Taken together, what the Tribune and Rasmussen polls probably show is that there is at least a little bit of flux left in the Democratic primary race, but that time is not on Hynes’ side. Women tend to outnumber men in Democratic primary voting, so Hynes will have to press this issue hard in January. It’s still doubtful that Hynes can find the right message and, more importantly, has enough time to pull it off by Feb. 2.

Making life even more difficult for Hynes was that Quinn was endorsed by the pro-choice group Personal PAC last week. The political action committee has a truly gigantic contact list and a bulging bank account. If the organization totally activates for Quinn, the governor’s problem with Democratic women could dissipate.

Meanwhile, why is Jim Ryan doing so much better than the other Republicans against Quinn and Hynes? Rasmussen polls showed both Democrats way ahead of all Republican candidates except Ryan.

Ryan is simply much better known and liked, even though he entered the race late, has little money and is not campaigning near as hard as most of the others.

The Tribune poll showed that 55 percent of Republican voters knew enough about Ryan to express an opinion about him (and they like him a lot), while only 27 percent on average knew enough about his top three GOP rivals to rate them.

Rasmussen had Ryan taking 88 and 87 percent of the Republican vote against Quinn and Hynes, respectively, while the other three GOP candidates scored a 70 percent average of the Republican vote against the two Democrats. The same goes for independents, conservatives and almost every other age group and demographic.

The good news for Ryan is the primary is so early that his huge name advantage could be enough to win this thing. The Feb. 2 election will be upon us before many people are even paying attention. The bad news? Well, there is no bad news in these polls for Ryan as of now.

posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Jan 4, 10 @ 10:35 am

Comments

one of the reasons I think the abortion debate is going to take on less and less significance is because younger people are much less excited about it as a central defining issue in politics. it’s been an issue for 40 years, and I think it’s one of these things that will always be around but will be much less central to the discourse. the tea party groups if you read the profiles were economic conservatives not social conservatives, and republicans have started to back away from using gay rights as an issue to target democrats.

Comment by shore Monday, Jan 4, 10 @ 10:45 am
There are die-hards like myself that disagree with Kirk who find the rumormongering totally irresponsible. There are other die-hards, like Jack Roeser who find rumor-mongering about Kirk sexual orientation fair game. That is why Roeser is a pariah in the conservative community. I won’t be voting for Kirk in the primary, but if he is the nominee, I’ll support him - whether or not the rumor is true. That said, rumors like that have no place in the discussion.

Comment by die-hard conservative Monday, Jan 4, 10 @ 11:01 am
Warren trying to make sense of that crowd is on a fool’s errand.

They’re conservatives? Then they should mind their own business, and stop peeking in bedroom windows.

Comment by wordslinger Monday, Jan 4, 10 @ 11:03 am
1) Why did they not survery likely D voters? Would it not be interesting if THEY had similar results to Rs?

2) If you asked the question, should IL have the same restrictions as the states around us, maybe the answers would be the same? some 80+ support for that? Which would really be a tightening of rules in IL.

hat the economy is a factor in their decisions, said Steve Trombley, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Council’s Chicago area chapter.

Interesting that a new clinic in Aurora led to a massive increase in abortions in that area, but NOT any increase in adoptions?

Maybe PP can drop their fig leaf about how they refer for adoptions……

Comment by Pat Collins Monday, Jan 4, 10 @ 11:06 am
It’s really hard to believe that abortion or medical marijuana will be in voters’ minds in November as opposed to the economy, state finances and corruption. Neither the economy nor state finances will likely be much improved, and we will have had a summer of Blagojevich on trial and assorted reminders of how corrupt Illinois is, most recently and spectacularly under the Democrats.

Even with frequent reminders (by the Democrats) of Ryan’s friendship with Stu Levine, this probably means that Ryan really could beat our Pat in the fall.

Meanwhile, the Dems may not want to take a chance on raising taxes on the middle class in 2010; if they’re successful, and Ryan beats Quinn, that gives thea Republican governor billions and billions to play with for who knows how long. I suspect our Pat will channel Arnie Schwarzenegger and beg for a federal handout to get him through this year. A big one.

Comment by cassandra Monday, Jan 4, 10 @ 11:18 am
Yes, Cassandra, and I’m hoping the Congress shows some restraint and doesn’t try to “help” the states. Just about all the states in fiscal trouble got there on their own. Digging their way out on their own might just be a learning opportunity for them. Certainly I don’t want to bailout California’s disfunctional state government, and I’m pretty sure citizens of Oregon would rather not bail out the sorry state of Illinois.

Comment by cermak_rd Monday, Jan 4, 10 @ 11:38 am
They can poll Republicans on abortion questions all they want and ask the question any number of ways. There are 7 Republican candidates for Governor - 6 are pro-life and one candidate is not.

Schillerstrom, the one candidate who is not pro-life, is polling at about 2%. Republicans are not clamoring for candidates that don’t support the right to life.

Comment by Steve Monday, Jan 4, 10 @ 12:53 pm
Forty percent of men think Quinn is the better candidate to “eliminate” corruption. I thought that too until I found out about who is running Quinn’s campaign. His campaign manager is a Daley aide. John Kamis’ Internet bio suggests that he had zero campaign managing experience before becoming Quinn’s campaign manager. I have been around long enough to know how this plays. Having a Daley aide as your campaign manager is a lot like Todd Stroger having a Daley guy for chief-of-staff. The more things change the more they stay the same with the Chicago Democrats. Quinn cannot eliminate corruption. Corruption will be eliminated only when the corrupt are removed from government and/or they are no longer insulated, protected and tolerated.

Patrick J. Quinn
Refomer and Honest Politician
1978-2008
RIP

Comment by Vienna Beefness Monday, Jan 4, 10 @ 2:31 pm
It sounds like 60% of Illinois Republicans are pro-life. That would be a clear majority in most polls, right?

Why would anyone believe that percentage should be higher, except for partisans who want to paint every GOP candidate like some kind of stereotype?

Comment by VanillaMan Monday, Jan 4, 10 @ 2:33 pm
VM -

Half of GOP primary voters are pro-life. My guess is that the other 10% refused to answer the question.

Rich -

Regarding your column, there is another possibility, but it would be hidden in other cross tabs.

African Americans may have problems with Quinn’s support for a tax increase. Polling I’ve seen in the past shows that African Americans are less likely to support tax hikes, presumably because they have tighter household budgets.

The same could be true of women voters, both because they have lower incomes and because they tend to manage household budgets.

If you’ve got crosstabs based on household income, or xtabs for tax questions, I’d do some comparing.

If both major Democratic groups have a major problem with Quinn’s tax plan, Quinn’s got a problem.

Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Monday, Jan 4, 10 @ 4:10 pm
=== They’re conservatives? Then they should mind their own business, and stop peeking in bedroom windows. ===

But we need a smaller government which provides no social services… so that we can have money police peeking into bedrooms and build large prisons for all the illegal immigrants, abortion seekers, and gays and other who do not match the GOP agenda. I’d write more but I am off to the Palin memorial book burning bonfire tonight….

Comment by Ghost Monday, Jan 4, 10 @ 4:15 pm
Half of GOP primary voters are pro-life. My guess is that the other 10% refused to answer the question.

Not quite - it sounds like both your statements are guesses.

Comment by VanillaMan Monday, Jan 4, 10 @ 4:58 pm
Rich-

Yes but more women have no opinion on questions like these.

Try again.

Comment by gopher Monday, Jan 4, 10 @ 7:59 pm
gopher: as Rich says…bite me…

Comment by Loop Lady Tuesday, Jan 5, 10 @ 7:45 am